Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., says partisanship is splitting the country and warned that feeding into the divisiveness is giving Russia and China ammunition ahead of the 2020 presidential election, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.
“It is important to question authority and ask questions and make sure that we’re getting the full story,” Rubio said before about 700 people at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches. “But I also think it’s important not to jump on every conspiracy you read or hear. ... A lot of times if something sounds too crazy, it might be.”
Rubio was referencing the death of financier Jeffrey Epstein, who hung himself in his prison cell last Saturday.
“You go online, and there’s one group that’s saying that ‘Hillary Clinton murdered him,’ and there’s another group saying, ‘No, [President Donald] Trump had him murdered.’ That’s how insane some of this stuff has gotten.”
Epstein, he said, was a “sicko.”
Rubio also spoke about gun safety (he wants legislation to create incentives for states to enact “extreme protection orders”), protest movements in the U.S. and compromise during a divisive time in U.S. history.
“If [you] change your mind on the basis of new information it is a catastrophic development in terms of how people view you,” Rubio said. To some, “compromise is viewed as a betrayal of your group. ... How can you possibly compromise with the other side and betray us? Or you are a double agent. You never actually were a part of our group and we knew it all along. Or you’re just weak and scared."
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